My wife and I tore through the first season of Netflix‘s “Orange is the New Black” in one week–about the same time people have to wait for a single showing of a network program.

Over some seven days, we eagerly followed “Orange is the New Black” protagonist Piper Chapman, a middle-class inmate at a women’s federal prison, as she dealt with watchful wardens, lesbian love affairs, putrid prison food and shower room skirmishes. And then it was over. After some Googling, we discovered that the exact release date for the next season hadn’t even been announced. Just when we wanted more, there was nothing left to see. But there’s no magic remote that can fast forward to a season that hasn’t been shot.

For today’s TV viewers, waiting is the new black.

Binging has established itself as an accepted way of consuming television. For years now, viewers have gobbled down entire season of shows–like “The Walking Dead,” “Battlestar Galatica,” “Friday Night Lights,” “The Wire,” and “Downton Abbey“–first on boxed sets, now streaming video, over the course of a few weeks, or even just a single weekend. Binging provides instant gratification. Binging allows viewers to more closely track storylines without losing hold of the details that sometimes slip away when shows are watched over the course of months instead of days. Binging allows shows to have supersized cinematic power as story arcs networks slice into hour-long servings become epic when ingested in multi-hour sittings. And if you have a big, flat-screen TV is there any reason to really leave your house?

But the problem with binges is that they come to an end. That’s when the hangover arrives. I spend more time between binges than actively engaging in them. I have intense periods in front of the TV, then I have long stretches of trying to put the show out of my mind because who knows how long it will be before it comes back on again. What Pablo Neruda wrote about romance applies to fans of TV shows too: “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

Right now, I’m not just waiting for “Orange is the New Black” to return. Like millions of other viewers, I’m anxious to see the new season of “House of Cards,” which is set to come back Feb. 14. I’m also waiting on new seasons of “Game of Thrones,” “Mad Men,” “Homeland,” and the cartoon fantasy series “The Legend of Korra.”

Scene from the “Game of Thrones” season four trailer.

HBO

TV viewers have long struggled with the wait for new seasons of their favorite shows to begin. The problem is structural: it takes much longer to make TV shows than it does to watch them.

With binging now a mainstream practice, the waiting has gotten harder. Shows that viewers used to savor over many weeks are now burned through in mere hours. Netflix’s policy of releasing the entire season of their shows on the same day intensifies the issue. Within a day of a new season launching, the wait for the next season starts. When “House of Cards” hits Netflix the morning of Feb. 14, instant gratification will be followed hard by instant anticipation for the next season.

Waiting for the next season of “The Sopranos” to start was difficult, but doable. I could focus on other shows, and other things, and by the time HBO got around to announcing the start date for the new batch of episodes, I would often be distracted by books or movies or other TV shows, and may have even temporarily forgotten that I had been waiting for Tony and the gang to return.

Scene from the second season of “House of Cards.”

Netflix

Thanks to social media–Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Facebook and the like–when it comes to TV shows, anticipation is inescapable. Speculative tweets from fans remind us about the shows we’re waiting on to return. Viral promotions tease us about the programs we’re trying to put out of mind. Facebook posts from actors in TV shows we love remind us that although there’s nothing new to see there’s lots that’s being said.

Along with my wife, I recently binged on “House of Cards,” and felt that empty binged-out feeling after we finished the last episode and had nothing left to watch.

As luck would have it, one of the actors from the show once coached my grade-school son’s basketball team. I ran into him at a game a few days ago. Chatting with him courtside, my mind flashed back to my binge. Talking to him was almost like watching a new episode of the show.

When he shook my hand to go I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to press a pause button on life and drink in a little more of that “House of Cards” feeling.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.